From Politico Magazine:
The honking is constant outside Mark Brnovich’s office. For the last four months, a steady group of protesters have set up shop a few days a week, holding signs with slogans relitigating the 2020 election: “Indictments Now Fix Nov. 3,” and “Arrest Criminal Board of Supervisors,” a reference to the Arizona officials who ratified Joe Biden’s victory 16 months ago….
Right now, Brnovich, a lifelong Republican and diehard conservative, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate — with a reasonable chance to flip the seat back from incumbent Mark Kelly, the Democrat who won only narrowly in 2020. In any normal year, his current job would be a big asset: He’s one of Arizona’s highest profile elected officials, with unmatched name ID and what seems to be a standing invitation to Fox News.
But in 2022, he faces a squeeze familiar to high-profile Republican state officials across the country. With Trump unwilling to let go of the lie he won the election, and the GOP base passionately defending his claims, Republicans who actually hold office — and who have to operate within the rules and norms of government — face a disadvantage with many of their own voters. Most Republican candidates just have to pledge allegiance to Trump’s election lies to prove loyalty to their national leader. Brnovich is tasked with executing on them. And legally, he has to tell Trump, “No.”
“He desperately needs that Trump voter, however extreme they might be,” says Emily Ryan, a Republican lobbyist in Arizona. “And with the extreme right of the party, Brnovich can’t legally go far enough to satisfy them. But any Republican primary opponent can just say what they would do and bring a more satisfactory answer to the mob.”…
So far, Brnovich has taken what looks like the path of least resistance, politically: He won’t endorse Trump’s Big Lie, or prosecute people over it, but he’s not loudly refuting it either. In interviews, He mostly tries to sidestep the issue. To burnish his Trumpian credentials he has sought to ingratiate himself with the former president and his supporters in other ways, like embracing hard-line border policies.
It’s a tricky balancing act for an officeholder, and it’s unclear if Brnovich, whose office and campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment, is adept enough to manage it. His fate will say much about the state of the Republican Party in 2022. If he can win the primary without bowing to Trump and drumming up real political prosecutions, it may be a sign the election fraud lie isn’t as potent in the GOP. If he gets knocked out by a loyalist challenger, it will leave the GOP with a harder battle in November: Brnovich is seen as the party’s best chance to beat Kelly, the former astronaut with a massive campaign war chest. And at this point, Arizona is solidly a swing state….
Brnovich was one of the first local Republicans to publicly acknowledge Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election in Arizona, and he was an early defender of Arizona’s election system when Trump declared it corrupt. He eagerly put his signature on certifying the Arizona election.
But where he was once bold on the issue, he is now silent. He’s allowed his office’s investigation into the Cyber Ninjas’ report to quietly drag on, without any sense of when it might be resolved. The primary is not until Aug. 2, and he may not want to further antagonize Trump or his supporters before then.
The approach may be working.